PSP EXPERIENCES TECHNICAL ISSUES, NOT CYBER ATTACK - EXCO

GEORGE TOWN, Jan 20 -- The Penang government today stressed that the Penang Smart Parking (PSP) system experienced technical issues yesterday and not a cyber-attack as claimed by some parties.

State Housing, Local Government, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman, Jagdeep Singh Deo said the technical glitches were detected at 10.03 am yesterday involving the PSP consumers’ e-wallet account balance displayed a total of RM4.40.

According to him, parking payment transactions and other transactions in the PSP system could still be carried out as usual yesterday.

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“I would like to inform consumers that there was no element of cyber attack against the PSP system and the records and balance of the user’s e-wallet are intact. I am also pleased to inform that the PSP system has also been repaired and is operating as usual,” he said in a statement here today.

PSP is an initiative of the Penang government to replace the coupon system with all payments made through a smartphone application under the Penang Island City Council (MBPP) and Seberang Perai City Council (MBSP) which was introduced in 2019.

Yesterday, thousands of users of the application were shocked to find that the account balance in the e-wallet displayed a total of RM4.40 due to technical problems, even though the actual amount was higher.

Apart from that, Jagdeep said the application has been downloaded 746,687 times as of Jan 18 and the total collection recorded so far is at RM29.10 million for both local authorities.

He said PSP aims to make it easier for the residents of Penang to get empty parking spaces without having to search for a long time apart from facilitating the enforcement system by local authorities without conducting patrols regularly.

‘The financing model for this PSP project is through the Private Funding Initiative (PFI) where the operator company, HeiTech Padu Berhad, to finance the entire project during the contract period and revenue distribution will be done according to the rate agreed by the company and both local authorities throughout the contract period.

He added that there are 12,000 parking spaces gazetted in the MBPP area while 24,000 parking spaces are allotted in the MBSP area.

-- BERNAMA